Ghost Moose
We live in moose country. In the fall and winter we live at about 7200 ft in the central Wasatch mountains of Utah on the outskirts of Park City. Yes, we are skiers. Moose visit our home there quite frequently. We have seen them resting and contentedly chowing their cuds next to our driveway in the front yard and in the sandbox in the back yard, as well as standing on our patio looking in through the glass doors.
Since moose can weigh over 1000 lbs and become quite aggressive if provoked, we have always treated them with great respect. Nevertheless, we very much enjoy seeing them. In the winter, when we are snowshoeing in the back country, we enjoy encountering their huge tracks stabbing deep down into the snow, and it was here that we first noticed something amiss. We would occasionally see drops of what appeared to be blood associated with these moose tracks.
During the past couple of years, we came to realize that it was not at all uncommon to see drops of blood associated with moose tracks in the late winter snow. It was happening altogether too frequently to be attributed to accidental injuries which the moose might suffer. From the internet we found that moose have a serious tick problem which becomes most extreme at the end of the winter as the ticks, which have lived on them through the winter, engage in their last major feeding before dropping off to lay eggs. These eggs then hatch into immature ticks which in late summer and fall will climb up bushes or trees and grab hold of another passing moose to start the cycle again going into the next winter. Looking more closely at some of the pictures of moose we have taken over the years, we realize that they do show signs of skin problems even in the fall and early winter.
Late this past winter a moose, which looked unlike any moose we had ever seen, passed near our home. Its coat was very shaggy and thin with patches of gray covering a large fraction of its body. This was in stark contrast to the thick luxurious black and dark brown coat we are used to seeing. I now believe this to be an example of moose suffering from a serious tick infestation.
Again, by searching the internet, we found articles like THIS which refer to so called ghost moose which are so extremely drained of blood and distracted from eating by their skin irritations that their lives are in jeopardy. Internet articles discuss dramatic declines in the US moose population, particularly in Minnesota and New Hampshire. The presence of these Winter ticks is proposed as a major contributor to the problem. While Utah is not listed as one of the areas in which this is a common problem, it does indeed appear to be happening here. Rightly or wrongly, much of the moose decline is being attributed to climate change. The argument goes as follows. The moose is particularly well suited to severe winters with its heavy coat and long legs. A briefer winter with lower snow pack allows more tick eggs to fall on snow-free ground in the spring where the chance of successful hatching is much improved. The reduced snow pack also allows deer, their much shorter legged cousins, to encroach on moose habitat bringing with them other parasites for which the moose is ill prepared. It is certainly true that the past couple of winters in Utah’s Wasatch mountains have been much milder with very reduced snow packs, much to the chagrin of us skiers. At this point the climate change argument sounds plausible. It will be interesting to see if the very severe winter experience in the Midwest and Northeast this past year does anything to stabilize the declining moose population in Minnesota and New Hampshire.
